Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Welcome to the third annual NCURA pre-award conference and welcome to beautiful Hilton Head Island. We hope that our conference gives you plenty to reflect on and that the surroundings give you some time to relax. Our goal is for you to be an active participant in a relaxed atmosphere.

Why relaxed? Change can be stressful unless we are ready to deal with it and prepared to accept it. Thus the conference theme, “Embrace the Change! Creating the Environment for Tomorrow.” The theme is very positive and very upbeat because we believe that research administration is positive and upbeat. Look at what has already been accomplished in research administration alone, over 7,000 NCURA members, three major NCURA conferences per year, recognition of the research administration profession within the academic community and more. The giant steps in laboratories and medical centers are just too numerous and wide spread to describe.

The future? The environment, medical research, outer space, information technology and anything else that fits in your imagination. This conference will help to prepare us for the changes in research administration that will support that future. We are all looking for new and better systems; we always are interested in the federal prospective; we want to know the latest news; and maybe, we want progress within research administration as career. This conference can help you achieve these goals and more of your own. It up to you to get the most out of it, we have established the framework.

The program committee is excited to offer a robust program , expanding the offerings to 6 workshops , 50 concurrent sessions, and 14 discussion groups. The sessions will be a unique mix of traditional 90 minute slots, mixed with 60 minute “short takes.” We have provided six tracks: Contracts and Compliance, Departmental, eRA, Federal, Predominantly Undergraduate Institutions, and Senior. Almost every track is represented in the scheduled times so you should be able to experience a great variety of topics during the conference.

The NCURA Pre-Award Research Administrtion conference offers the opportunity for learning, networking, sharing and relaxing. Hilton Head offers fantastic beaches, golf, shopping, seafood, biking, or just sitting around the pool on a warm summer evening. What better way for you to experince research administration! The program committee and NCURA staff welcome you and look forward to meeting with you. Let us know anyway we can improve the current conference or make next year’s another NCURA success.

Welcome to NCURA’s third annual PRA and to Hilton Head Island!

Your PRA III Co-chairs,

NCURA Thanks Our Year Long Partners

Gold Partners

Huron Consulting Group
MAXIMUS

Silver Partners

BearingPoint
Beers & Cutler
Hogan & Hartson
Information Technology Works